The Badge
by Osidiano
Summary: Written for the pw kinkmeme: this meshed two prompts, one with Phoenix having super regenerative powers and one with him becoming a superhero. Edgeworth begins to notice something suspicious about Phoenix's healing process, and Nick picks up a new job.


Disclaimer/Notes: I do not own any of the Phoenix Wright games, or any of the characters here. They belong to Capcom, and no money is being made off of this piece of fiction. This story was written solely for entertainment purposes, and no copyright infringement was intended. Please, do not sue. All original ideas are original (duh) and belong to me, unless otherwise mentioned. This story contains fluff, mild angst, superheroes, and is **unbeta'd**. Enjoy.

**The Badge**

Wright was in the hospital.

That was all that Edgeworth had managed to focus on when he got the call from the doctor. There had been some mumbling about being the first person on the defense attorney's next-of-kin, but that did not make any sense, so Edgeworth was sure that he must have misheard the man. He and Wright weren't related, after all, and though they had been there for each other time and time again, the prosecutor still had trouble admitting that they were good friends sometimes. Wouldn't Wright's parents be the first ones contacted? Or even that idiot, Larry? Before he could question it, though, the conversation had turned to medical status.

Phoenix Wright was currently unconscious after taking an ugly fall from a burning bridge. He had landed in icy cold waters, thankfully missing the rocks and rapids just a little ways further up. Edgeworth had asked how far his friend had fallen, only to be given rough estimates and guesses. About 100 feet, maybe more; really, it depended on what part of the bridge he had fallen from, and how long he had held onto the failing structure. He had banged his head a little, and might have a concussion. The doctor said he had broken three ribs, fractured his femur, and sprained his left wrist. But he would live, and that was really all that mattered.

When Edgeworth got to the hospital, and inquired about any changes in Wright's condition, the nurse at the front desk just smiled, and said that the other attorney was recovering nicely, and would be able to go home at the end of the week.

"Isn't that a little soon, given what happened?" Edgeworth asked, confusion knotting his brow. She glanced over his friend's chart again and shrugged.

"I'm sorry to have alarmed you, but I think the paramedics may have misdiagnosed him at the site of the accident; he doesn't have any broken bones, fractures, sprains. . .there's really nothing wrong with him. He caught pneumonia from being in that river, and he has a few bruises from the fall, but that's it. Oh, and your brother's awake n—"

"He's not my brother," the prosecutor interrupted tersely. The nurse just apologized for the confusion, and let him know the room number. That was the first time Edgeworth ever saw Wright hurt.

* * *

The second time, Edgeworth did not see it as much as he heard a retelling of the events from Larry.

"—Are you kidding me? Nick used to get sick all the time growing up. He had the flu for a week and a half in the sixth grade," Larry replied after being questioned on Wright's health. The faux-artiste took a drink from his beer glass before continuing. "He got bronchitis, pneumonia, chicken pox, mono, strep; his appendix and tonsils went out, too. Oh yeah, and he had a really nasty cold in college junior year, too, back when he and Dollie—er, Iris, I guess—were dating."

"What about broken bones? Did either of you ever break anything?" Edgeworth asked, toying with his empty wine glass. He tried to make it sound offhand, and not nearly as curious as he was feeling. Larry gave him a strange look.

"Yeah, I did. All the time. I broke my arm, a couple fingers, some toes. . .but nothing big or important."

"And Wright?"

"Nah, I don't think so," Larry tilted his head to one side and pursed his lips thoughtfully, eyes rolling up to regard the ceiling as if that would somehow jog his memory. "I mean, when I broke my arm, that was sixth grade, just before Nick got sick. See, we were testing parachutes—"

"You were _what_?" Edgeworth stared at him incredulously, a mortified expression contorting his handsome features. Larry just laughed.

"That's what little boys do, man! We had these great big ol' trash bags, and we tied them together and held 'em up, and jumped up off the roof."

". . .Didn't you live in an apartment?"

"Yeah. Three stories. We jumped off together, but I hit the ground funny and landed on my arm," Larry continued, pausing every so often for a drink. "My mom flipped and called an ambulance, and they took us to that big private hospital just off West and Main."

"You mean, Saint Catherine's?" Edgeworth clarified, trying to remember just what medical institution was there.

"Yeah," a look of utter disgust crossed Larry's face then, and he pushed his now empty pint away from him. "Man, they were a bunch of quacks. Worse than the Hotti Clinic, if you can believe that. They told Nick that he shattered both knees and would never walk again. Turns out, he didn't bust anything; he had a good landing. I mean, he caught the flu while in the hospital, I think, and he was bedridden for a little bit, but he was fine."

"You don't think that that's a little weird?" Edgeworth pressed. The bartender moved down towards them, and Larry motioned for another round. He didn't answer until he had a full pint in his hands.

"Nah, man. That was all that shitty hospital. They were always screwing up people's charts and messing things up. This one time, my mom went in to have this boil looked at—don't grimace, I have a point with this story—and they told her she had _flesh-eating bacteria_, and got one of those Life-Flight helicopters to take her to some big, special hospital in San Fran."

"Was she okay?"

"She was fuckin' fine! It was a _boil_. There was nothing wrong with her. Man, we felt like morons when the doctors in San Fran looked at it. They were all, 'uh. . .it's a boil. Chill out.' And another time, I went in 'cause I had an asthma attack before I knew that I had asthma, and—first off—they made me _wait_ in the ER for a goddamn _hour_ as I'm freakin' out and I can't breathe and I'm blacking in and out of _consciousness_, and _then_ when they finally saw me, they mixed up my prescription, so I got some dude's heart disease medication instead of an inhaler," Larry shook his head with a sigh. "That was the last time we ever went there."

"How were they not sued for malpractice?" Edgeworth wondered outloud as he swirled his pinot noir in the new glass.

"No idea, man. They also told Nick that he broke a disc in his back in high school after he took a bad fall from the rafters during a play rehearsal. Told him he could never do sports or heavy-lifting ever again."

"What really happened?" the prosecutor asked, already dreading the answer.

"He pulled a muscle and came down with mono," Larry replied with a laugh, and sipped the foamy top of his beer. After a moment, though, his expression turned serious. "Now, don't tell Nick this, but I used to really worry about him."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he got sick a lot, you know? Like, he had this weird fever for a month this one time. And his appendix went out sophomore year. He had a lot of bruises, but didn't get into fights. So. . .I thought that there might be something up with his immune system or he had cancer, or something. In college, I mean, I made him go get tested with me 'cause I was worried he had AIDS."

"What?" Edgeworth jerked his head up at that, nearly dropping his glass in his shock. "But he's not—"

"Dude, don't be an asshole," Larry interjected, giving the prosecutor a flat glare. "Straight, junk-free people can get it, too, if they're not careful."

"Tha-that's not what I was going to say. . ." Edgeworth set his wine glass aside and turned in his seat slightly, to better read Larry's behavior. "How'd you get him to go? What happened?"

"Oh, that was easy," the brunet scoffed, draining his beer glass and also setting it aside. "I told him that one of my ex-girlfriends had just tested positive, and that I was scared 'cause, y'know, we used protection during sex but not foreplay. And he offered to take me to the free clinic near campus, and then I said that I didn't want to go alone, and I asked him if he would go in and get tested with me. 'Cause I was'scared'—" Larry lifted his hands and made little quotation marks with his fingers as he said it— "an' all. And we both came out clean."

"Well, that's a relief."

"You're tellin' me."

"What are you telling each other now?" came the inquisitive voice of the defense attorney from behind them, and both Larry and Edgeworth jumped at its arrival. Larry placed a hand over his chest in a dramatic show of shock.

"Jeez, you nearly gave me a heart attack, Nick! What took you so long?"

"I missed the bus. . ." Wright answered, his brows knit in a confused sort of amusement, and his smile slightly lopsided. Edgeworth scooted over to the next seat so that the other man could squeeze in between them and join them for the rest of the evening.

* * *

"I once swallowed poison, you know." Wright was staring out over the water, forearms resting on the stone wall, hands clasped loosely together as he leaned forward over the edge of the bridge. Edgeworth frowned at the casual tone of the statement, but joined his friend nonetheless. They were quiet for a long moment, just looking at the water and the bright skyline's distorted reflection in it.

"Wright—"

"It was back in college, during Dollie's trial. I swallowed the pendant that she had hidden the poison that killed Terry Fawles and handicapped Godot. I was fine, though," the defense attorney's explanation of events cut across anything the former prosecutor had been going to say. A look crossed his smooth face that Edgeworth did not recognize. His next words did not sound angry or indignant, though Edgeworth was sure that such a reaction would have been completely appropriate. Instead, he just seemed deeply concerned. "I don't mean to pry, but I overheard you two talking about me earlier."

"It's not quite what you think. . ."

"Did you think I had AIDS?"

Edgeworth gaped at the quiet innocence of the question, of the utter lack of any self-righteous taint to those words. For a moment, he forgot that he should have been vehemently denying that subtle accusation. Edgeworth shook his head. "No, I didn't. I thought that it sounded preposterous."

". . .Have you ever gotten tested?"

"I've never needed to," the reply came back bristling with hostility. Wright held up his hands in a mock gesture of surrender, but went on.

"Well, while you're in the clinic, they tell you what the preliminary findings say, so that you can go home knowing. But there's a three month wait before they send you a letter that tells you whether or not those prelim findings were wrong; you could've tested either false positive or false negative earlier."

". . .Where are you going with this, Wright?" Edgeworth could not shake the sudden, foreboding chill that assaulted him, even though the night was still relatively warm. He placed an uneasy hand on his friend's arm, as if prompting him to go on.

"I never opened that letter, Edgeworth," Wright could not look at him when he finally said it, and Edgeworth fought down his initial urge to recoil in alarm. "I couldn't. I was too scared. 'What if. . .?' I didn't want to know, I didn't want to think about it. I tore it up, and told Larry that my prelim findings were right, and I was clean."

"Wright, this is serious!" Edgeworth brought his hands up to rub lightly at his temples, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "Do you think—?"

"No one ever thinks they're HIV-positive, Edgeworth."

"What are you going to do?"

Wright shrugged, turning to lean back against the stone wall, elbows helping to prop him up as he set his blue-eyed gaze on the few stars they could see from within the city. "Oh, I don't know. The victory celebrations for this case are just about over. Are you going back to Europe soon?"

"Don't change the subject," Edgeworth scolded him softly, opening one eye to scan the other's face for clues to the direction of this conversation. But Wright was not looking at him, and did not seem too concerned with answering. Edgeworth sighed. "Probably. Yes. And you? What are your plans now?"

"Godot—no, ah, Diego—said that he would pay for my hospital fees, and he even offered to pay for therapy if Maya or Pearls needs it. Turns out he had a lot of money in savings before he went into that coma."

"Well, that was awfully nice of him, all things considered," came the humorless reply. Wright shrugged again.

"I'm glad that someone could cover it. I certainly couldn't afford it," there was another long pause between them. Wright seemed to be searching for something more to say, and when he found it, Edgeworth was disappointed that it was not along the lines of what he had been hoping for. "The girls are going back to Kurain in a few days. Pearls is really upset, but Maya just keeps trying to smile and gloss over everything. I think that they just want to get away from the city. Did Larry tell you that he's moving back, by the way? He said—"

"I don't _care _what he said," Edgeworth cut him off coldly, grabbing him by the upper arm and forcing him to turn towards him. Their eyes locked, one set glaring angrily and filled with concern, the other just wide and mildly confused. "What about _you_, Wright? Are _you_ all right? Do you know what _you're_ going to do next?"

Wright just smiled, and maybe it was the light, but Edgeworth thought that for once, it did not quite reach his eyes.

"Me? I'm going to keep defending people, Edgeworth. And I'm going to smile, because it's not over yet. I might get a second job to help pay the bills, though."

"Please get retested," there was an uncharacteristically pleading manner to that request, a slight stress on the way that he had said 'please.' Wright nodded, and wrapped his arms around Edgeworth's tense shoulders. The former prosecutor returned the hug.

* * *

The suit he wears to his second job is not a business suit. It does not have three matching pieces and a nice tie to complete the ensemble. The suit is a uniform, but he is the only one who wears it. He slides his fingers into black gloves, and flexes them to ensure the fit. There are no added frills or cuff links, no loose slacks or badly-tailored jackets. The pants are tight so that they do not catch on anything; the shirt is a plain black button-up. If he had known how to sew, he would have made the whole thing special and eye-catching. But Phoenix Wright did not know how to fix a torn hem, let alone create a costume.

His second job is a night shift that does not pay. Phoenix's hand pauses on the lycra mask, a pair of reflective lenses stuck to the holes where his eyes would normally have peaked through. He did not choose the job for its benefits or good healthcare, for the all-inclusive dental plan or paid vacations. It did not offer anything to him except for the sense of purpose. This was the job that he felt that he was born to do; unlike being an attorney, it was not something that his heart went into or that he had always dreamed of doing.

Phoenix Wright was different from other people. He had known that for a long time, but had only just recently put all of the unusual circumstance together. Like all men in these unique uniforms, he had a curse, a gift, a strange power; that is, that injuries did not affect his body the same way that they would have affected others. A blow to the head would cause temporary amnesia instead of a concussion or brain damage. Knife wounds became stress ulcers. Broken bones morphed into fevers and night sweats. Bullets. . .well, he had not been shot at yet, but he was sure that they would also turn into something relatively benign, like some kind of infection. His body held onto bruises a little longer than normal, but otherwise, there would be little in the way of physical consequences that could link him to his dangerously active nightlife.

He pulls the mask on over his head, smoothing the long ends of the cowl-neck over his shoulders beneath the shirt. His hand pauses on the attorney badge on the desk for a moment, before he picks that up, too, and carefully pins it to his lapel. He checks it twice before stepping out into the dark streets of L.A.


End file.
